Particularly for renovating hotel rooms, shower cubicles are known that have a shower tray and are designed as a cubicle that is open on one side. A shower rod for holding the shower head is located on the wall of the cubicle, for instance, along with the shower fittings and optionally a soap holder. Cubicles of this design are built into the hotel room and connected to the existing water inlets and outlets. These shower cubicles make it simple to retrofit antiquated hotel rooms by adding a shower. ortable free-standing toilet cubicles, used especially on construction sites, are also known.
Especially in caring at home for persons who cannot care for themselves, it is often inconvenient to wash and care for them in a bathroom that does not meet the needs of the patient. Conventional bathrooms and toilets are unsuitable for such patients and even perhaps for persons with slight handicaps. It is true that these bathrooms can be adapted or reconstructed to suit the needs of these persons, but this is very expensive and sometimes, as in rented apartments, is not allowed. With increasing age or with handicaps from illness come physical limitations that make it impossible for a person to use the toilet, bathtub or shower without help from others. As nursing home accommodations for such patients become increasingly expensive, it is becoming more and more common for them to be cared for at home. Daily care for such a patient demands enormous effort on the part of the caregiver, however, since as a rule the patient must be transported into the tub or toilet, and afterward back into bed. In general, wheelchairs cannot be used in conventional bathrooms.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,817 describes a built-in sanitary furniture unit with a door, which tightly closes off the built-in furniture unit so that the built-in furniture unit can be used as a bathtub. The built-in furniture unit includes a bench seat, under which is a toilet bowl that can be moved out of the built-in furniture unit and, after a seat has been lowered, can be used as a toilet outside the built-in furniture unit. For washing up afterward, the user has to enter the built-in furniture unit, or be helped into it by a helper.